Bad workplace behavior hits bottom line

Disrespectful behavior - co-workers "forgetting" to share credit, bosses finishing employees' sentences, staff chronically late for meetings - is on the rise in today's workplace, according to Envisionworks, a Chicago-based firm specializing in corporate behavior. And incivility hurts profits.

Envisionworks cites a recent University of North Carolina study in which fully 100 percent of the 775 respondents - from companies of various sizes and representing a range of industries - called themselves the targets of bad behavior. More than half those individuals said their productivity had declined as a result.

Envisionworks' proposed solution? Its own Organizational Civility Index, which purports to measure the level of bad behavior within an organization. The firm claims the written test can diagnose the nature, frequency, and severity of bad behavior. Envisionworks then helps the organization develop ways to combat it.

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